Brothers
by i love alex
Summary: He looks at her, always and sees Stefan, completely.     A Season 3 fic
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is the beginning of the bloodlust multi chapter arc. Just to pre-warn you, the themes of this fic are quite serious and there is a heavy focus on the Damon and Elena relationship. It follows right around where we left off in 2x22 although I have taken Katherine (my poor homegirl gets no love) completely out of the picture, enjoy:

* * *

><p>They travel for miles only stopping when absolutely necessary, to hunt and feed and kill. He's murdered 18 people already. <em>18.<em> He has no idea how long it's been since they've left Mystic Falls, whether it's been days or weeks but the bodies, the bodies tell him. He's not keeping count for a reason; he's keeping count like it's automatic, a tally going around in his head. Body _after_ body. He's messier than he ever was, lazier with the way he moves but he's quicker too, painless even as he fumbles through the blindness of not knowing how hard he'd bitten or sucked because the stench and desire and _need_ for blood is too strong. He tries though, he tries through the screams and the way some people fight him, he tries to make it less painful. For them. For himself. There's no longer a notion of reality in his mind but there is some in the bodies. There is some, in the way Klaus watches on like a predator about to eat his prey only Stefan's the course he won't feed on.

"I'm impressed." Klaus mutters over to him one night; the girl in his arms, who couldn't be more than 15 years old, is barely conscious, her eyes rolled to the back of her head though Stefan can tell by the way she was still softly moaning, that she was in pain.

They've fallen into a back and forth repertoire before and after but never during. The man he's just killed himself, the girl's father, is slumped by Stefan's feet and Stefan merely grunts, wiping his face with the back of his hand and being careful he didn't look back down at the body. He hates Klaus. Even through though this lust and desire for nothing but the way blood oozed from another persons skin, the way it tasted and dried in his mouth. He _hates _him and clings onto it because it's the only piece of humanity he has got left.

And Elena. He's got Elena. On some nights, when they've found a place to rest and it's still and quiet enough for Stefan to remember, he thinks of her. There's a part of him, that doesn't want to. There's a part of him that thinks remembering her is the worst thing he could do, that remembering her will be the weight on his chest, will be the second he hesitates before killing another person because they've started to cry or breathe too quickly and he wants to die. He wants to die but Elena.

Elena, he thinks. _Elena._

And he still lives.

* * *

><p>They look for a month. Together because Damon won't let her go by herself and she's not stupid enough to try and sneak out without him; you could never sneak with Damon anyway, Elena's learnt.<p>

It's a solid month of maps and spells and search parties that lead them nowhere and give them nothing but a further dwelling of hopelessness; a helplessness that makes them often lash out at each other because there was nobody else to blame and it feels like they need to be blaming this on someone.

"We're not doing enough." Elena spits one night, looking hard at Damon who was standing on the other side of the room with a scotch glass in his hand. He twirls it back and forth, watching the liquid splash at the sides and wills himself not to look over at her even though he can feel her eyes boring into the back of his neck. Looking at her these days has been dangerous. He sees life and feels an ache that pushes too close against his chest, an ache that doesn't let him sleep anymore. An ache he has for his brother.

He looks at her, always and sees Stefan, completely.

"Do you have any suggestions?" He asks and then he sighs because he's tired but not with her, just at this situation in general because he feels it too, this restlessness, this need to keep moving and doing, working to find his brother. They weren't _doing_ enough but he's tired because what else can they do?

Elena shakes her head, shoving her arms over her chest, locking her jaw; feeling the way her heartbeat was racing, the way she felt like the entire world was about to shake if she so much as moved off balance from it.

"I can't do this anymore, Damon, I can't keep waiting. I can't keep standing here, waiting and doing nothing, I _can't_."

Damon looks over at her without even thinking about it and sees the tears in her eyes he's sure have been there a lot longer than she's realized. He studies her face, really studies it for the first time in weeks and she looks exhausted, like she hasn't slept anymore than he has. She looks defeated and worn out, like she's had enough but can't bring herself to admit or believe it. She looks lost and lonely and he finds himself wondering if she were thinking as much as he was, of the person Stefan was being forced to become. The person she had only briefly met, the person his brother was years before he was.

"We'll keep looking. We will. I promise." He tells her, putting his glass down and she drops to the couch, unable to keep standing but there's a small, hopeful smile on her face even though he can tell she doesn't really believe it but that's enough. That's enough to suppress not only the ache of missing and wanting his brother back but of also still desperately wanting her, hating himself.

Elena stands from the couch, leaving to go upstairs to Stefan's bedroom, where she had cooped herself up in ever since he had left and Damon ducks his head, feeling for the scotch again but instead finding her hand, soft and small, squeezing his.

"Thank you, Damon." She whispers, her lips at his cheek and she knows how dangerous this is, knows that he does too but he brings himself to closing his eyes and letting her kiss his cheek because right now the only things the two of them had were each other and even though that's exactly what he's wanted for the better half of a year, it feels so much more bitter than he ever would have imagined, without the other third of them there, without the person he's always wanted.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: The amount of trust you guys have in me is insane. Really. It both warms and terrifies me, hopefully that doesn't change after this chapter, haha:

* * *

><p>It's been 3 months since Stefan has disappeared. Neither of them keep track out loud to each other anymore; they only did in the beginning because it felt like they had something over the fact that they had no where to look, no leads to go off but they had days, they had the amount of weeks since she'd last heard his voice, felt his cheek against hers. She had that and it meant something, it meant something because those weeks passing were also the weeks till he would come home again. But when weeks turned to months, it grew heavier, the loss of days over the loss of not knowing where he was.<p>

But she knows Damon still counts, knows that he's still holding himself to them like an obsession, like she is, because it'd mean he'd come back, if they counted for long enough, he would have to come back. He would _have_ to.

"It's my birthday today."

They were sitting on the bonnet of his convertible at the edge of the reserve, a place they'd started to come to more and more lately just to be somewhere other than the empty house. The sun was barely setting and Elena's wondering if the sun was setting where Stefan was too when Damon looks at her and she can feel it; she can feel that look and the way his eyes linger across her face and he's always looked at her like that, always but it's starting to feel different to her, looking back.

"Happy birthday." He breaths and Elena feels the pang of hurt in her chest, soften almost when he smiles at her as she turns her head. The radio they've got playing from the car changes to a slower song and she slips down off the bonnet and extends out her hand, the park completely empty all but the two of them.

"Dance with me?" She asks because she didn't want to keep sitting there and she liked the song; Damon only grins a little softly, steps off the car and grabs for her hand and she wonders, taking his, when she had stopped worrying that these moments meant more to him than they did to her.

They sway back and forth, a little awkwardly, a little quietly to a song that was written way before she'd been born and she finds herself leaning into him and pretending that this was the way things had always been even if they don't fit together quite as perfectly.

* * *

><p>Klaus is preparing for the slaughter of a family he'd been staking out for the past month. Stefan doesn't ask why but knows, just by watching him, that there was a reason. They didn't usually plan their kills or when or how like this but Klaus had been carefully crafting and obsessing for weeks over this one family; when they were home, when they weren't. What lights they kept on, which ones they didn't. Whose bedroom window belonged to who. There were two little girls, that couldn't have been any older than five and there were parents, a mother and a father. There was life and love and beginnings, with this family and Klaus wanted to destroy it, limb by limb, neck by neck and it would tip him right off that edge he's barely gripping to, Stefan knows, if he were to do this. He has never killed a child before even through the throws of lust and anger and need for blood, never, and he has held himself to that, that line where he had no control, that line where if he jumped right over it, he would lose himself completely.<p>

He has held himself to that line and Klaus was going to tear it right through.

"We should leave town, it's too risky, and there'll be others." Stefan tries, for the fourth time that night and it's dangerous, to voice incessant opinions to Klaus like this but it's worth the risk of being reprimanded over the risk of never being able to ever live like a normal human being again.

Klaus merely brushes him off; looking colder and more mechanical than Stefan's ever remembered him looking. He's pacing back and forth along the alleyway behind the house and it was freezing and pitch black but Klaus had been watching the back windows, sensing and waiting without hesitation. They haven't slept in days and they're both exhausted and drained, needing blood and energy. Stefan feels the hate for this man, this creature before him flood any other desire for anything else, he lets this hate fuel the thirst to tear somebody's throat open and kill him instead like he's thought of doing a thousand times before, to just _kill_ him knowing he would probably end up killing himself.

"You will get the man and his wife." Klaus tells him lowly and he's stopped pacing, hunching his shoulders like he does whenever he's about to attack, looking at the back of the house where Stefan is sure, he can see movement.

They were only babies. _Babies_. There's bile in his throat and hot, bitter tears in his eyes that he hides by shaking his head out a little and the thought of Elena is so sudden as he moves that it leaves him breathless. Her face, her voice, crawling up and cradling his spine and into both ears, telling him, that everything was going to be okay_. Just do it_, she whispers and he can hear it as though she were right there beside him as he follows behind Klaus, _don't think, don't stop and think about it, just do it, _she coaches him, and then she's gone and Stefan feels, for a moment at least, okay, determined and okay.

But the screams from the woman will be nothing like the screams from the children that Stefan will still hear, ringing in his ears long after this time has passed him.

* * *

><p>She cries after the first time. It had been quick and rough and she didn't come but he had kissed her cheek softly, telling her that it was okay, he <em>knows<em> and it's okay.

"It's not!" Elena screams and pushes herself off the bed, untangling the sheets from her ankles, "This is not okay!" She turns and stumbles out of the room immediately going into a run down the hallway, tripping over her feet when she finally gets to the landing of Stefan's bedroom and smacking her face against the floor. She drags herself to the bathroom, her face a mess, her lip bleeding and showers for over an hour, scrubbing at her body hard with soap, rubbing skin raw off her arms and legs and when she can't scrub at herself anymore, when she doesn't have the energy to keep herself upright, she collapses to the floor of the shower and sobs. Sobs because she just slept with Damon, because the lines had blurred and feelings had blurred and she had loved Damon enough to want to. Because Stefan was missing and she ached for him and needed him but had realized, quietly but so devastatingly, that maybe he wasn't ever coming back.

She sobs, moans, pounds her fists at the floor until she's screaming so loud, she can't hear her own heart beating and Damon is suddenly there, wrapping a towel around her and turning off the faucets.

He changes her clothes the best he can, her body shaking so violently he needs to wrap both arms around her tightly, just to contain her and lifts her up like she were a child. He puts her in Stefan's bed, piling another blanket on top of her, thinking there were both going to lose their minds because of this.

"I'm sorry, Elena, I'm so sorry." He whispers, wanting to do something more, say something more but can't; he leaves the room and gets out of the house, as far away as he can, just to breathe.

"Where are you?" She whispers as she cries into the pillows when the room is dark and she's finally, finally alone, "Where _are_ you?" And she curls herself into a ball and reaches for the place where he'd usually be, the place where he's supposed to be and tries so hard to remember what it felt like, to feel him reaching back.

That night she'll dream of Stefan. He's a monster with a face that's etched of deep lines and shadows. There's blood at his teeth and there are naked, broken bodies scattered around the ground where he stands but she walks for him, slowly, without fear and takes his hand.

"Now why would you do that for?" She asks as he snarls and tries to push her away from cradling his face but she wins and he lets her hold him, giving her the answer.

"For you." He says and Elena arms seem to lose him like he's fading away even though he's still standing right there, "_I did it all for you_."

* * *

><p><em>44.<em> Some children now, mostly men because they don't fight as much and have a larger ratio of flesh to blood. This is how he rationalizes it in his head; not that he understands what doing that means anymore but he still does, he picks and chooses based on that little fight he's still got in him, to be good. Be good, he tells himself and he chooses the men over the women to feed on. _Be good._

* * *

><p>They haven't talked to each other in over a week even though they're both living in the same house. She's avoiding him and he's avoiding her and they both hate it even if it's easier this way.<p>

But late one night when she's stumbling her way to the kitchen, she flicks on the light to find him sitting there in the dark, drinking a cup of tea. She's never seen Damon drink a cup of tea, nor knew he even liked it so she walks in, makes herself a cup and sits with him because she didn't know and there's apart of her, that wishes she did.

"Can't sleep." She mumbles to him quietly; Damon was looking at the floor but he nods, just barely, in agreement.

It's silent for a long time, the two of them taking sips when they want to but he stands eventually when he finishes, puts his cup in the sink and goes to leave.

"I can't lose you too." She whispers against the ache in her throat and almost thinks he doesn't hear her but he stops at the doorway, with his back to her and ducks his head, not sure if he could take much more of this.

"Damn it, Elena," He says and it's a sigh and moan, all at once, "You could never lose me."

And she turns her head to look at him, finding that he's already gone and she feels her heart possibly sink even lower than it was because it feels like she has, it feels like she's lost them both.

* * *

><p>He writes her a letter he will never be able to send but it's one he reads to himself on the nights that are most difficult, the ones where he has to fight a little harder, will himself to keep going, knowing it would be so much easier just to find a tree branch, a stick and kill himself to keep from killing so many others. Sometimes, he can't get past the first line because he sees her name and it makes him want to weep or to lash out and destroy things, things he knows would probably end up being human beings so he can't. He can't read past her name even though he wants to and needs too but he just <em>can't.<em>

_Dear Elena, _

_I can't stop hearing the screaming. I hear screams when I close my eyes, they're caught in my lungs and I can't get them out. They scream more now. I think it's because they think it'll make me stop but I can't. I can't stop and I want too so desperately. I want to stop doing this, I can't take anymore, I can't handle being away from you anymore. I want to die, Elena. I want to die, you are keeping me from that. I love you, I know that, I remember that. I love you._

_Stefan._

* * *

><p>They have sex again after Caroline's 18th birthday party. It's held at the grill with a bunch of school friends and a couple distant family members as well as her parents, her dad coming in with his finance. It's a nice night, there's karaoke and drinking and maybe that's why it happens, because she drinks more than she should and isn't in the right mind space, or maybe is in the mind space she hasn't let herself be properly in.<p>

She finds Damon at the bar just as she's finished singing and he's watched her and smiled the entire time, clapping when she had finished. She looked happy for the first time in weeks and he knows he should care that apart of that had to do with the alcohol running through her system but he doesn't, not when she looked like this; so light and just, _free._

"Hey!" She yells, scooping the arm up that isn't nursing a shot of scotch with both her hands.

Damon smirks, shaking his head a little at how ridiculous she was, she never really could hold her liquor all that well but she was tiny so it wasn't all that surprising. He thinks he shouldn't have let her drink as much as she had but she was finally moving and talking like she used too, months ago and he's missed that Elena, so much.

He puts down his glass and tries to balance her when she stumbles a little against the bar stool, putting his hands at her waist.

"Hey there, Lushy."

Elena flops her head down onto his shoulder and he fixes his hold on her, worried she might fall (he'd seen her fall flat on her face before, he doesn't really want a repeat).

"You wanna go home?" He asks, not expecting her to agree but she nods, her head still down and he thinks the alcohol's finally just hit her where it hurts, that she was sleepy and needed to lay down, perhaps put her head over a bucket.

He manages to get them to his car without her falling and they drive for awhile in silence but when he's pulling up to the drive way, she takes her head away from where she's had it leaning against the window and looks over at him.

"You're good with me." She tells him once he's turned the car off and he scoffs, rolling his eyes and undoing his seatbelt.

"Sure, sure, Elena, heard that one before." He's about to reach over to undo her seatbelt when she comes forward and kisses him against his lips, just softly. She tastes like all the things he's imagined her too but also a little better and he closes his eyes even though he shouldn't.

"I mean it, Damon, you are." She says breathlessly, flicking her eyes up at him and he hopes this isn't the alcohol talking but knows that it probably is so he tries to disentangle himself the best he can without hurting her pride and opens his door, realizing he was a little breathless too.

Elena is suddenly undoing her seatbelt and stepping out of the car also, "After all this time, you're seriously not going to kiss me back?"

Damon, expecting this, turns to face her, ready to fight with her, feeling like that's all they'd be doing lately, "Elena, you've been drinking, you're not thinking clearly and I'm not about to sit here and let you think I'm taking advantage of that, you don't know what you're doing."

It's quiet for a moment, all but they're breathing and she's glaring at him, wanting to say things she'd know she'd regret but has been regretting not saying for even longer.

She slams her door, walks around the car and brings both her hands to his face, blocking him in and he hates how it makes his heart beat a little faster, how it makes him feel so guilty but also not.

"I do, Damon, I do know what I'm doing."

Damon takes a long minute to be able to look at her but sees when he does, the truth across her face, her cheeks pink, her eyes deeper than he remembers them; he hasn't looked at her this closely for a while and it doesn't hurt like he thought it would. It hurts less, so much less than anything else has over these last lonely and crappy months.

"I'm not him, Elena."

And she flinches a little and he hates himself when he realizes that she hadn't been thinking of Stefan but he had just brought him up as that solid wall between them.

Elena steps back, looking hurt and ashamed, like she might cry but she shrugs her shoulders like she's shaking something off and looks for the door, stopping when she has her hand on the knob of it.

"I wish you wouldn't look at me like you hoped you were."

It feels like his entire chest might cave in, like he's taken a hit but it's only half a second before he's moving for her quickly, swinging her around to grab her face, kissing her roughly.

"I'm not, I'm not." He breathes and Elena lets her head fall back against the door, his lips trailing her collar bone, his hands fingering the zipper of her jeans and wonders for the first time, what it would be like to die while still living.

They have slow, lazy sex just as it starts to rain and she stops herself from saying I love you by coming, seconds after him, instead.

* * *

><p>He slips up and leaves a guy on the side of the road, throat open and exposed and he knows Klaus will give him shit for it but he didn't have time to think about the dead, dying body while also hearing the familiar ring of a police siren. But he's better than that and he's angry with himself, punching the spine of a tree once he's fled to the nearest forest, and breaking his hand.<p>

"Fuck!" He screams aloud to no one but a flock of birds that suddenly shoot off, startled by the sound.

He's getting sloppier, weaker even though he's had more flesh blood in his system than he's ever had in the 127 years he's been living but he's weak. He's tired and ready to be finished even though the only instinct simmering still in him is _hunt, rip, kill. _He's done, he's finished and he's _done_.

That night when it's raining and Klaus is asleep, not speaking a word to him, punishing Stefan's slip up through silence, Stefan lies awake and thinks of a way to kill this man.

* * *

><p>She gets into a car accident and when Bonnie calls to tell him to get down to the hospital, Damon swears it's the only time his heart's ever really stopped beating. The car hits her as she's crossing the end of the street she lived on with Jeremy and she's the only one hurt, a minor fracture in her arm but they keep her over night for observation and Jeremy insists on staying with her, sleeping on a little cot beside the hospital bed.<p>

"You scared the living shit out of me." He tells her when the lights are off and they're both exhausted from the day and ready for sleep. Elena smiles, clinging to Peter her teddy bear she got given as a baby.

"Scared myself a little too." She sighs, rolling over and laying the hand that had been plastered gently and carefully across the pillow; they had given her pretty decent painkillers a few hours ago and she was only just starting to feel the sting.

"Hey Elena?"

Elena turns her head, meeting her brother's eyes in the dark. She watches as he hesitates which she finds odd because they've been pretty good at being able to tell each other stuff lately.

"I'm really sorry about, Stefan."

She frowns, feeling that familiar pang of ache she got whenever somebody mentioned his name, and wonders why he would be saying that now out of all the times he could.

"What makes you say that?"

But then she thinks, she thinks of the way she had cried and yelled, being unable to breathe when they had brought her in. She thinks of the words she had cried out even as a nurse along with her brother and Damon were trying to calm her; the words she pleaded and begged for and it makes sense why Damon had left earlier, why she felt a little weaker, not just because her arm suddenly was.

"_Stefan!" She had screamed out, "Where is Stefan! Stefan! Please, please…I need him, where is he? Stefan!"_

"Yeah." Elena whispers, closing her eyes and feeling the tears on her cheeks, "I'm sorry too."


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Ah, you're all so angry at the amount of Damon/Elena which I totally get but know that there'll be plenty of Stef/El to make up for it and that the Dam/El is necessary even though it doesn't feel like it is but it is, trust me.

* * *

><p>They get caught up with a couple of rogue vampires and though it isn't an equal fight with Klaus, they still get a little knocked around and Stefan's too low on strength to follow through on the plan he had come up with in order to rip Klaus' heart right out.<p>

But Klaus was now low on strength too and Stefan thinks his best chance, if any, would more likely be when Klaus' defences are at there lowest.

So he organizes their daily feed, some tourists because they're in California now, the longest placed they've stayed in and it seems to be Klaus' favorite because of the more versatile selection of 'replenishment.' Stefan doesn't care, it's hotter and sunnier but he doesn't care. The locations don't change where he is truly in his mind and he's learned, years earlier, ways in which he can block out the sun when need be.

It's a bigger group of people then what he'd normally get but Klaus is immediately elated and this was Stefan's exact intention, to distract him with his own greed and hunger, but to be able to do what he needs too, he'll need to feed first, hard and fast. He'll need to go through people like he's going through nothing but air, sucking and feeding and breaking necks like he's breaking pieces of wood and not pieces of bone. He'll need to do it painfully, roughly. People will scream more, see more, feel more. But it'll mean he'll finally beat him. He'll mean he'll win. It'll mean, Klaus will be dead. So he ignores the way it claws at his self-preservation and completely shatters it, his skin so thin he feels if someone were to touch him, he'd break too.

He ignores the way it hurts so much it feels like his heart is stuffed so far into his throat he can't feel it beating and he completely loses control.

There is a couple and their son, and then two women, two men. There's a little girl and then a women. There's an older man and an older women. There's larger and smaller, there's hair and eyes and mouths, there's crying and choking and screaming as he kills. As he feeds. He keeps, out of the corner of his eye, a close watch on Klaus because the timing will literally have to be perfect in order for this to work and as Stefan moves through bodies faster than Klaus does, faster than Klaus realizes, there's almost nothing left to feed on.

But then he sees it.

Klaus is sinking his teeth into a woman, a young and pregnant woman, Stefan chokes. He gags over the blood, still in his mouth and it spills down his chin and onto the young boy he's got by one arm, already dead. He drops him to the ground and stares at her, cowering in fear, clinging to her stomach, turning to Klaus with her back in a pathetic way of protecting the child she hadn't even had. She could be Elena's age, she looks so young. This woman, this pregnant, frightened woman, could be Elena, looks like Elena. But it's disoriented and lately, every time he closes his eyes, she's all he ever sees so Stefan looks at this pregnant girl and sees Elena's eyes and hair and smile and laugh, all of it even if they're not really there and it almost, almost derails him. _Almost._

He grunts and spits out the blood, shakes out his head because there are tears in his eyes and he needs to see for this, must see for this. Klaus is talking, low and quietly, under his breath and Stefan knows he has seconds, seconds before all hell breaks loose.

"Klaus." He mutters when he's only inches away and Klaus growls against the girl's skin; she's crying, sobbing openly out into the night and the sound hits Stefan like a violence and he keeps his head low and repeats Klaus' name again, breaking it out through his mouth.

Klaus swings around, dropping the girl like Stefan hoped he would; his eyes are dark and he looks abrasively across at Stefan like he's not even really there and it's as he bends back down to the ground, clawing at the girl's clothes that Stefan comes forward and reaches right through his back.

Klaus fights. He fights against the pull and the tug but Stefan's stronger now, he's become as strong as Klaus through these weeks without him really being aware of it so Klaus fights but it's not enough and Stefan rips his hand through, pushing Klaus against the girl and manages to claw his way around his heart, blood gushing and skin everywhere but he pulls until he realizes, taking his arm out and throwing it to the ground, two hearts to the ground, that he's killed the girl as well.

Stefan stumbles back away from the gore and the bodies, he stumbles until his back hits a tree and he collapses to the ground, hunching over but he can still see it, even as he closes his eyes; this mess he's made, this mess he'll now have to clean up.

_It was over._

* * *

><p>He notices that she gets quieter afterwards. He used to think it was because she felt guilty but now he thinks it's because she just needs the time to gather herself in a little. Still, he wishes she would talk to him, if only to tell him what she was thinking, feeling. He asks her one night when their breathing isn't quite even yet and he's tracing lines over her arm; they hardly ever did this, just lie together afterwards.<p>

"You look like you're a million miles away." He notes softly, bumping her a little to get her attention.

It takes her a moment but she turns her head up on the pillow, smiles, just barely to acknowledge that she heard him but otherwise doesn't say anything.

"What are you thinking about?" He asks, wriggling a little closer but she's immediately moving away and he knows he's pushed his luck.

But he's getting a little sick of having to tiptoe around the obvious, having to tiptoe around her because he doesn't know what she's thinking and that terrifies him more than he'd like to admit.

"Elena, you can't keep doing this, shutting me out."

She whirls around after she's slipped her dress back on and her face is tight and determined and he thinks he's hit a nerve even though he's not quite sure why or which nerve it is but he thought it was getting better, these nerves and he's not sure why she suddenly looks like it's only getting worse.

"What do you want to talk about, Damon? Huh? What we should do tomorrow, how nice the weather is?"

It stings more than it should and he pushes away the covers and grabs his jeans balled right by the end. He pulls them on, standing up and she watches with her arms over her chest, which surprises him because he was ready to follow her out.

"You're lonely, "He accuses when they're just standing there, only half clothed and she glares at him, suddenly looking a lot older than he's realized she's getting.

"So are you."

And he lets her go, knowing she was right.

* * *

><p>It takes him days to move, to become aware of the stench of the dead bodies too overwhelming to suppress anymore. He sometimes sleeps but he's not really sure anymore which parts he's dreaming and which parts he isn't.<p>

"Stefan?" Her voice softly calls.

These parts, he's dreaming. He knows, he knows he has to be but he also likes to believe that these are the only parts that he isn't; when Elena comes to him.

"Stefan, what are you still doing down there?" She asks and he looks up to see her there, her hair down her back, the dress she's wearing, long and pretty, making her look like she was floating as she began to walk towards him. She was achingly beautiful but also calming and he puts out his hand for her to take before he's really sure he's ready to stand again.

"Elena." He whispers against her shoulder and they're swaying slowly, around in a circle to only the sound of quiet breathing and he wants to tell her everything, clutch for her tighter, let her hold him but they continue to move and it feels like that's exactly what he needs right now, more than anything.

"I'm sorry I gave up." She tells him and they've suddenly stopped dancing but she's moving around him, up against his back, kissing at the skin, gripping to his arms and god, he wants to seep right into her.

"You didn't, Elena, you didn't." He tells her because he's sure it's him who gave up but she lets him go, moving away and disappearing before he can see her again.

"I'm so sorry, Stefan, I'm so sorry." He hears just as his knees hit the ground and things seem to go dark all at once.

* * *

><p>They get into a fight. It's one of the worst they've ever had, since they met, since Stefan's been away. One of the most truthful. He almost hits her. He reaches out his hand to slap her across the face, anger and venom and everything else he's been feeling, ashamed and like shit, coming out in one motion but he misses her and punches the wall beside her head instead.<p>

She flinches but keeps standing there even though she's trembling so much she needs to lean up against the wall. The wall that now had a hole where his fist had been and she's breathing heavily and he is too and though she's terrified, terrified of this Damon and this person, she doesn't leave, she doesn't move. She just looks at him, waiting for him to gather himself together enough, to look up and look back.

His eyes are dark creases when he does and he looks horrified and in shock and she knows he's about to cry but she bites her tongue and doesn't tell him what they are both thinking. _Stefan would never do this._

It's ringing in both their ears like she has said it, like she's screamed it at him and Damon steps back away from her and turns, vamping out before she can try to stop him. But it's numbing, more numbing than anything that's been said or anything he's done; his absence.

"_He was better than you_!" She had yelled, wanting him to hurt as much as she was, suffer as much as she were suffering. Wanting desperately, for him to leave her alone because she didn't deserve to be loved and held and wanted by him the way she was. She didn't deserve to still ache for Stefan, to still want him after being with his brother, "_And it isn't fair that you're here and he's not, it isn't fair because I loved him, I loved him Damon and I will never love you. I hate you, I hate you!_" She had screamed, watching as his face turned and changed, twisted and fell. Watching as she broke his heart.

But she doesn't hate Damon, couldn't ever even though she knows at some point she probably should've. Just like she probably should've given Stefan up and bettered herself for a life that wasn't filled with Vampires and curses. Bettered her life for her brother. Bettered Stefan's life, Damon's.

"I was okay." She whispers to no one, fingering over the hole in the wall, similar to the one carved out in her chest, "I was." She lies, knowing she's not.

* * *

><p>He fucks a girl in a bar with long brown hair, deep brown eyes and a smile that isn't nearly as warm as the smile that belonged to him.<p>

He breaks her neck, sucks her dry and keeps moving back towards home.

* * *

><p>They don't talk for two whole days and it feels like a step back somehow, like they're no longer on the same page. They've always had one another to lean on even through all the crap they've been dealing with for the past few months and she's pushed him away and he's lashed out at her before but this time feels different. The space between them had levelled and widened to a degree she didn't quite understand. It takes her two days just to figure out that she missed him. She just <em>missed<em> him.

"Damon?" Elena asks when it's late one night.

Damon, leaning against the back door, turns against it. He'd been looking out through the glass panes for hours, watching the sun go down while drinking out of a scotch glass, silent and still. It worried her more, his silence over his fury because it usually meant he was thinking things he wasn't sure about and he, more than anyone, was usually so sure about everything.

"Can you help with my hair? I would but my hand…"

She wonders as she watches his eyes flame out, if he could see right through what she was trying to do but as he steps towards her slowly, she realizes that he's always been able to see right through what she does and that it was almost part of the problem.

She's wearing a pair of sweat pants and an old shirt, her hair still wet down her back from her shower and she hands him the comb and he takes it carefully, like he's afraid he'll break it if he doesn't hold it the right way.

"Sit." He tells her softly, walking to the couch, being careful not to touch her as he moves past and Elena realizes, he's just scared of breaking her.

He's slow and gentle as he combs down her back and if she didn't know any better, she'd say that he's done this type of thing before, taken care of someone and then she's thinking as she closes her eyes, that his brother is the only other person he's ever taken care of, time and time again, in a way that he wouldn't care for anybody else.

"Thank you." She breathes when he's finished and her hair is unknotted and he's laying the comb onto the table and she expects him to move away but he leans his forehead against her back and kisses against the shirt she's wearing instead.

"I'm so sorry." He whispers and she suddenly doesn't want to think about how sorry she was too or of turning around and looking at how hurt she knows he is, so she leans back and peels off her shirt, coming around against him so she doesn't have to do either.

"Show me." She tells him and that's enough to get him to kiss her and enough to make the pain against her chest, her heart clenched tight, to stop.

"Show me." She breathes and he tips her right back. _Show me_, she begs until she doesn't have to keep her eyes closed anymore, until he's sinking into her and she can feel things, feel him and it's better but worse.

_Show me._

* * *

><p>"I want to start looking again."<p>

Elena rolls over. She had fallen asleep for a little while but had been mostly just lying there, listening to the rain outside and Damon breathing beside her.

She takes in his face, apprehensive and nervous, like he's afraid of what her reaction will be and if she's honest, she doesn't really know what her reaction is. But she knows that it's what he must've been thinking about before, for hours, not if he should start looking but how he was going to tell her that he wanted to. They never talked about why they had stopped looking before or when they should've, they both seemed to reach this equal ground of knowing it was too painful, knowing it had to be enough.

"Okay." She says and rolls back over, suddenly feeling weak. She tucks the sheets beneath her chin, shutting her eyes against the tears already welling; she hadn't wanted to stop looking for Stefan, ever. She hadn't wanted to but she had.

"We'll keep looking."

* * *

><p>He sleeps and eats but mostly runs even though the months of living like a nomad have forced his sense of direction to become blurry and obsolete. He keeps moving in a direction, sometimes getting lost but always coming back to a straight path he believes will lead him back to the place he's always known to be the beginning. The place he knows and feels like he should go back to even though it's like walking through sand or glass, unsteady and unnatural but at night, he dreams of Elena and that, through the blood and hunger and taste of something he can never get enough of anymore, that is the most natural thing he knows. And that keeps him forward, that keeps him in a direction he knows must be the right one, going back to Elena.<p>

* * *

><p>There's a pound at the front door one morning when she's in Stefan's room taking a nap. Damon's out, planning with Bonnie and the person pounds again in a shaky, non deliberate way that scares her even though she was pretty safe in the house. She pulls on a jumper, still half asleep and grabs her cell phone just in case, tucking it in her pocket.<p>

"Hello?" She calls out when she's made it onto the first floor landing and the pounding immediately stops. Elena freezes, digging her hand into her pocket and fiddling around for her phone.

"Who's there?" She calls out again, a little louder and she jumps, startled when there's a loud thump and it sounds like the person's just dropped to the ground, out of defeat or out of something else. She starts to step towards the door again, bracing her hands out either side of her and preparing herself mentally for what, or who could be there; a vampire or a lost passerby. She's honestly not sure which one would be worse.

But she's turning the handle and opening the door and it's the last thought she has before everything else seems to implode inside her, her heart shoving itself against her chest because it's him, he's there and it's him.

"_St-Stefan_?" She gasps and she can't see his face because he's hunched but she can tell that he's still conscious, can hear the way he was breathing, sharp and staggered and there's a part of her, a huge part that is so overwhelmingly relieved that he still is, that he's still got air in his lungs, that she's worried she'll pass out. She holds herself to the door handle, steadies herself even as she sways looking down at him.

"Elena…you…just, don't please don't, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, Elena, I'll keep going, I promise, I'll keep going just don't leave me again, please don't leave me again."

She bends down the best she can, onto her knees to gather his face in her hands, gasping when she realizes that it's covered in blood. It's breaking her hurt and also fixing it almost, hearing his voice, feeling his skin beneath her fingers and he's a mess and so exhausted, she can tell as he struggles to even move let alone stand.

"Sshh, Stefan, it's okay, I'm here, it's okay, it's okay now." She hushes even as he shakes, trying to push her away but Elena gathers whatever strength she has left and pulls him against her. She manages to get the door shut even though his face is practically to the floor.

She's prepared herself for this. She has, through the nights of aching for him, worrying about him, she has thought and planned about what she must do, will do if he were to return. But it's not the same as it was in her dreams, he's worse and she's more of a mess and it's too much and he's been through hell, he has, she can see it.

"I'm so sorry, Elena." He cries and spits up dry blood and Elena wipes her nose with the back of her hand, knowing she was crying too and tries to hold his hand the only thing he's willing to give her.

"It's okay, Stefan, it's okay."

"You always leave me, I know you're not real but please, you need to stay here, you need to stay, I need you, don't leave me."

It's only then, she realizes that he thinks he's dreaming and that more than anything, grounds her, stabilizes her somehow.

"Stefan, shh, it's okay, I'm here, I'm not leaving, I'm right here, it's Elena." And he seems to finally locate her out of all the things going around in his mind, like he hasn't realized it's her he's even talking to and their eyes lock and it seems to get quiet finally and she brushes her thumb over his lip, nodding her head a little and trying to smile through the tears on her cheeks.

But he suddenly pulls himself back and her hands drop and her breath hitches because she's not ready to let go of him yet but she watches as he cowers from her, flinching around and it just _breaks _her heart.

"Elena, Elena, I love you so much, I'm so sorry." He cries and he's on his feet in the corner by the doorway and she can barely breathe but she comes forward just as he moves back and she can't help him, she can't if he won't let her.

"Please," She begs, knowing she would have to calm down in order to calm him.

"Stefan." She tries and walks forward even as he plants himself to the wall behind him but something about that word seems to settle him more than anything else and she repeats it, his name, softly and gently over and over again until she's close enough to reach out for him.

"I'm here." She whispers, feeling his heaviness and the blood and everything else as he finally, finally stopped and fell against her, his head at her shoulder, "I'm real and I'm here."

And Stefan opens his mouth, barely getting out the beginning of her name before his eyes roll to the back of his hand and he loses consciousness, falling back against the wall. She tries to soften his fall, the best she can and then end up together on the floor; she rests against his forehead, kissing him there and whispers that she loves him until her breathing's even and it's gone quiet again.

* * *

><p>"He's alive, Damon." She says into the phone and it's a laugh because she'll cry otherwise, completely break down but she hears it so clearly, his shock and relief and laughter too.<p>

"He's alive." She repeats breathlessly to no one but herself, folding and hugging herself around it because nothing else seemed to matter.

Nothing else but him.

_He's alive._

* * *

><p>AN: Annnnnd get ready for shit to hit the fan.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I just wanna say how appreciative I am of the feedback that has been both so positive and responsive towards this story, it's so encouraging. I apologize for the lack of updates, school has been taking up the majority of my time (was also given a nasty serve of the writers block, blah) but I hoping the gaps between chapters won't ever be this long again.

* * *

><p>When they were little and their mother had died, Damon had grown to fear the dark. He ached and longed for his mother, confused over why she would leave him, confused that she even could. He began to obsess over her because he couldn't sleep and he was afraid if he didn't, she'd disappear completely. He replayed the sound of her voice, laughing in his ear. Remembering what it felt like to feel her palm against his cheek, her arms holding both he and his brother, just perfectly, as though they were moulded to fit there.<p>

Damon was 11 and Stefan was only 5 and though his brother's own hurt and confusion over losing their mother was a sickness to Damon, knowing it was something he couldn't fix, it became something Damon leaned and depended on. Knowing he wasn't alone in his grief; that there was somebody else just as lonely, just as hurt as he was.

"Damon?" His brother whispers one night; they shared a room closest to the front of the house, furthest away from their father's and it was ironic but not, that distance created. That distance kept.

Damon had been crying softly into his pillow and he felt the sting of shame and embarrassment at his brother's voice, wanting nothing but to ignore him.

"Damon?" Stefan repeats, his voice a little louder as he sat up in his bed, only a few feet away.

Damon continues to ignore his calls, working hard to repress them but he hears the familiar sound of a bedspring squeaking and feet pattering on the floor; his brother's hands curl suddenly around his arm.

"Damon, will you let me sleep with you?" His brother quietly asks, tugging onto him gently.

It won't be till he's much older and time has stretched beyond his imagination, the years passing and he's no longer obsessing over his mother but over a woman he'd give the world for, that he'll realize why Stefan had asked and why Damon had let him.

"Papa will be angry so you must go back to your bed in the morning." He tells his brother but he moves over, making space for Stefan to fit and he slides in, curling himself there at Damon's back. It'll be how they'll sleep for that entire year.

Damon will stop fearing the dark, fearing rather, the idea of losing his brother too. Obsessing over not losing him but of all the ways in which he could keep him, right at his back.

* * *

><p>"Is he breathing?"<p>

Elena nods, keeping a tight hold to Stefan's arm. He was still lying across the floor right by her feet. Damon walks forward, brushes her aside and picks up his brother, scooping him up into his arms like he was carrying nothing but air.

"Good." Damon says quietly as he walks away from her and Elena can finally feel the tears, some dry, some wet, on her cheeks.

"Good."

* * *

><p>They keep Stefan locked in one of the cellars because it seems like the right and only thing to do given the circumstances (and blood) and like before, they both stay down there overnight to be with him. They don't speak but when Elena slumps over, exhausted and drained, both emotionally and physically, it goes unspoken; the way he'll lift her up. Carry her out. Put her to bed.<p>

He sits back down on the dirt floor, leaning against the solid wall of the basement, counting the seconds that seemed to just bleed effortlessly into minutes and then hours until the entire night's disappeared from him while he's sat there, silent and still. Beside his brother.

He's thinking,

_Don't take her away from me._

But he's also thinking, his eyes filling, _you're alive. You're alive, you're alive, you're alive._

* * *

><p>"We should go in there."<p>

It's been two days; Stefan still hasn't moved or shown any signs of consciousness and Damon honestly can't tell if he's faking or if it's genuine.

His brother's breathing is shallow and unsteady but it tells Damon nothing, it gives him nothing and he's just as impatient as Elena is because they had him back. They had him breathing and _alive_ and with them, yet they were still so separated. So detached. He could pick out his brother's heartbeat miles away, out of anybody else's, yet only feet away, it isn't recognizable and it terrifies Damon.

"A couple more days and the blood will be completely gone, then we go in if he still hasn't moved."

Elena's face hardens, her eyes like slits and she looks exhausted, her body weak and needing to lean against things, even though she's just slept 12 hours straight

But she nods, "Okay." Hesitating, focusing her eyes on the cellar window and Damon's grateful that he put a better lock on the door this time, "Okay." She repeats and turns away, walking slowly down the corridor.

Damon can still hear it, as she climbs the stairs to Stefan's bedroom, as she crawls her way back into his bed and he's not really sure if it's herself she's trying to convince or him, knowing he could hear her.

* * *

><p>By some miracle (<em>threats<em>) Elena leaves the house to spend the day with Jeremy. It's the first time she's left the house in over a week and they get into another fight over it and she only ends up agreeing to leave if Damon called her every half an hour with an update and would come back if he hadn't.

Damon thinks she's a ginormous pain in his ass but complies because she needed to get out of the house and he honestly just needed a break from her anyway.

It's not why he tries with his brother, without her there. It's not.

It's just how he got the idea to.

Damon leans his forehead against the mental railing of the cellar; his brother was still wearing the shirt Elena had found him in. It's matted with blood; he can see the stains marked darker against the black fabric. He tells himself that it's worse than it looks. He tells himself not to get too complacent, no matter what happens next. He tells himself to breathe.

He opens the door.

Stefan flinches as he does it, visibly and Damon sways too, just barely, right on the stop, suddenly overwhelmed by the movement. He keeps, tries hard to, his arms tense and locked by his sides; prepared for anything, for his brothers weight but finds that the longer he stares at his brother's back, the weaker and weaker the lock of his arms get.

"Come on, " He starts and if either of their hearing wasn't as good as it was, neither of them would've heard it, "I know you're in there, it's been months, you didn't miss me at all?" He's baiting him, he knows but it's coming out of his mouth heavier, quicker than he expected and he feels suddenly angry, a hot burn in the pit of his stomach, not really knowing why.

But as he goes to take his next breath, it gets caught, like a choke in his throat as he watches his brother roll suddenly onto his side, looking up over at him. Damon can't take in his face quick enough or well enough or just _enough_, his heart is racing now so brutally.

"Well actually," Stefan starts, his voice rough and low, deeper than Damon remembers it and Stefan's eyes are so dark, they look black, "I did."

* * *

><p>Damon fixes his brother a drink.<p>

"Thanks." Stefan mumbles when he clutches the glass in his hand; he's freshly showered and changed but for some reason, Damon can't keep from seeing the marks where the blood used to be.

He watches Stefan slide one finger over the bookshelves, going slowly around the library room like he was counting each object, taking inventory of the things that might've moved, might've disappeared while he was gone. But nothing has and it's exactly the same.

Damon wonders, as Stefan now stands with his back to him, staring out through the windows, if it somehow placed his brother in the present. If it somehow removed the time when he hadn't been in this house yet this house had kept on without him.

"Stefan?" Damon says and Stefan flinches again, though it's subtle and Damon almost misses it as Stefan finally turns, his eyes focusing on Damon's, his face set in a faint smirk that's so disarming, Damon needs to look away for a moment.

"Klaus?" He asks him, almost tentatively and Stefan hides it well but not fast enough and Damon catches the flash across his brother's face, the way his jaw locks, the way the hand that isn't cradling a scotch glass, curls into itself.

"Dead." Stefan practically spits and looks away from Damon, slumping into a chair without even looking at it. He starts to trace a ring around his glass, watching carefully, intent on not looking back up but Damon sinks down into a chair opposite so he doesn't have to.

"Where is Elena?" He asks after a moment and his finger freezes on the rim.

Damon stills.

He thinks he takes too long to answer.

"Out."

Stefan turns his head sharply up at his brother and Damon hates that this conversation is going to a place he doesn't want it to, not now, not yet; Stefan keeps his face tight but Damon can tell by the way he's holding his glass, he's bordering on impatience and a simmering anger.

"With Jeremy, she's out with Jeremy."

They stare at one another for a long moment and Damon doesn't know what his brother is looking for or what he sees but he needs to look away, at the carpet even though he knows that's worse than staring him right in the eye; he thinks he could vomit up his guilt and it'd still manage to burn a way into his skin.

"Did you fuck her?"

_Fuck_, he thinks. His eyes hit Stefan's immediately and he swallows, his mind racing, his heart racing; it's in Stefan's eyes, all of it, the hurt, the accusation, the restraint. It's all there and Damon knows he's not okay, his brother is _not_ okay. He's been through an ordeal, he's been to hell and back and it's in every movement, his breathing, his _face_. He is not okay.

Damon stands slowly and puts his glass down and Stefan follows his brother's movements like a shadow, walking towards him and around the low table set in the middle of the room.

"No." Damon tells him and it's clear and loud; he's become a lot better at controlling himself, especially around his brother, his ability to snap and lose it higher around him than it was around anybody else but his hands are shaking. _He's _shaking.

"I took care of her, Stefan." He says, almost regretting it the second it comes out of his mouth because Stefan looks like he's just taken a hit but his eyes harden, his jaw locked.

"Come on, Damon, you gonna lie to your brother?"

They're so close, they could reach out and touch the other but both of their fists are locked by their sides and Stefan's mind is switching so quickly through his emotions that the need to swing out and hit something, penetrates through his need to fall against Damon, he's still so weak. It mixes, to hit and swing, to fall, to keep standing; to have something, to need something. He doesn't know what he needs, his heart is pushing against his chest, and his veins are like ice. He just needs something.

"What… what is going on? _Stefan_?"

Damon sees it like it's a freeze frame film; the way Stefan's eyes seem to fade out almost instantly. The way they seem to soften like they've been drained and he realizes before Stefan's even seen Elena, that it's her voice. Her voice has calmed his brother in a way, Damon thinks; his brother didn't even comprehend himself.

"Damon?" She whispers, coming further into the room with her hand up to her chest, pressing on her racing heartbeat. It had nearly flown right out when she had seen them both, standing as they were. She's seen it before; the seconds before a fight, the seconds before they would lash out with fists and not words.

Damon steps back. He has to leave, needs to get before he gets asked to and he can't stand it, being in this room anymore. He doesn't look back at his brother but goes up the stairs quickly, brushing past Elena so that there arms barely touch but he feels her skin, soft and warm and uses it in order to propel himself forwards and not back.

"Stefan?"

He's looking at the floor and she walks slowly, carefully around the banister and down the steps, onto the landing of the library. Her throat is aching and she feels like she could fist herself together, push herself out so that there wasn't a beginning or an end, she's so entwined with him. Has been. Will be, always.

"Stefan?" She repeats softly and she stops moving, just stands still. It takes him a moment, a weighted, desperate moment to realize that she was there. Right there, feet away and he could touch her, hold her, keep holding her.

"Elena?" He breaks out through his mouth, barely turning his head up and she's a mess, tears on her cheeks she hadn't realize she'd been holding in when she starts to move, pushing herself against his body.

The way he pushes back, the way he enfolds her so tightly, gripping to her like he's afraid she'll disappear, won't ever erase the days and months but it somehow makes them harder and harder to imagine. Easier to understand.

"Elena." He breathes into her hair and he's crying and breathing and holding her, so tightly, so steady that she forgets for a moment, the loss of him, the loss of himself.

"I know." She finds herself whispering even though she's not sure what's going to come next, even though he's so wavering on his feet, in his mind; he's just so thin but she whispers and clings to him because she knows that, this, him, she does.

_She does._

* * *

><p>"Do you need anything?"<p>

It's the third time she's asked but the first for him to say yes.

"What?" She whispers; she's sitting cross-legged on his bed, watching as he stood unsure and hesitant by his bedroom door. They came up here a couple minutes ago and she'd let his hand go, knowing it'd be a step by step process, his presence here again.

It takes him a moment but he flicks his eyes up and then around the room before he finally looks right at her and his face is almost suffocating; how impossibly scared he was, how confused and she's desperate to get up and go to him but knows he just needs this space, needs to readjust, to figure out, to understand. To ground himself.

"You." He says quietly and it breaks her heart.

She gets up, carefully unfolding herself leg by leg and makes her way over, touching his elbow, gently tugging at his arm as he looks at the floor, anywhere but her and she doesn't know why, she doesn't but it's okay because as much as she wants to feel what he is feeling, suffer what he has suffered, she knows she can't.

"Stefan." She moans when he's smothered himself against her shoulder and their pressed together in a way that makes her breathe again, more clearly than she has in months, her entire life and it's suddenly them, it's only them.

They dip a little until her hips are arching against his pelvis, he's hard through his jeans and he's lifting her and enfolding himself against her before she can really get her eyes to focus.

"Make love to me." She grounds out breathlessly, wondering if it was possible to seep against him, the way she did before, the way she had before; the way he had her always, not giving her back until he was back there with her, "_Make love to me_."

* * *

><p>It's raining when they finish. He climbs off her and puts his jeans back on and she's lying there feeling like he's just taken something away from her even though she's not quite sure what.<p>

It wasn't right, she knew. It was different. Rougher. It hurt but he had kissed against her neck, whispering that he was sorry, over and over again until he's not just whispering apologies for fucking her too hard but for everything else. The unknown things she didn't, the things he had done. The things he hadn't; this emptiness between them they had to fill almost blindly.

"Stefan." She says quietly; she wishes they could talk to each other, they're only really on words and bare sentences and she hates it.

He's shirtless, leaning against the door that led out onto his balcony and it doesn't surprise her when he pushes on the handle and steps out, ignoring her. She waits, only a few minutes before she rolls out of bed, slips on his shirt and steps out there too.

"I can't remember." He says, over the noise of the rain and she frowns, her hair already wet and steps closer towards where he stood, right against the railing.

"What?" She asks and touches his back even though she knows she probably shouldn't.

"What it feels like…I can't remember what it feels like."

And though there's a part of her, the part that's aching, that wants to break down, thinking she knew what he meant, she moves herself against him, leaning her forehead to his back, completely drenched they both were.

"I'll help you." She tells him.

He doesn't say anything but shifts a little, so they're closer together even though they were still back to chest and he hangs his head, letting the water run down his neck.

_To feel_, she thinks.

* * *

><p>They're back where they started, almost two hours ago but she's fine with it because she'll do this as many times as she has to; rearrange herself, himself, themselves back together. The rain has stopped and they've changed, the two of them.<p>

He couldn't stand or sit in one spot for more than a few minutes but she sat, on his bed, not moving around him but letting him move around her.

"Stop it." He suddenly says sharply and Elena flicks her eyes up from where they were looking at the bed, wondering why he was so angry and how he had gotten there so quickly. She's ready for this though, she is.

"Stop what?" She asks calmly and Stefan stuffs his hands into his hair, now pacing back and forth along the floor by the bed.

"Stop." He says more loudly and Elena tenses, sits further up, readying her body for a fight she thinks she's already in the middle of and tries to ease the worry now pounding against her chest.

"Stop what?" She asks again and Stefan stops pacing, glaring at her with a hatred she knew wasn't for her but for the things in his head, the memories, the blood; all of them, screaming within him, needing to get out.

"STOP IT." He yells and throws his hands down by his sides, moving back away from her.

She's shut her eyes and hung her head because she knew the best thing would be to just wait, to just wait for him to breathe more evenly, wait for this to pass even though she was barely struggling to keep herself together as it was.

Even though she didn't really know if it was going to pass at all.

"Elena." She hears suddenly and it's quiet and ashamed, soft coming from his mouth and she feels as he sits on the bed and comes against her back.

"I'm sorry." He tells her again into her hair and she's still limp, biting her lip to not cry and listens to him weeping softly and begging against her back.

"It's okay," She whispers and finally moves her arms, reaching for him to touch and grab onto, "It's going to be okay."

_You're here_, she thinks. It has to be.

_It has to be._

* * *

><p>AN: So the shit didn't exactly hit the fan? But it's not exactly smooth sailing from here on out.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: I planned to update so much sooner. I planned and planned and planned but then I got sick and the plans got thrown out the window. So I apologize and also thank you once again for the warm feedback, it is so appreciated.

* * *

><p>She wakes up alone; it doesn't even look like he's slept, the sheets are flat on his side. It doesn't surprise her. Or worry her as much as it probably should; she's become immune to the hope, that he might be there next to her. So it's expected, this loneliness.<p>

But he was home now. He was home with her, with Damon so waking up without him there shouldn't feel as normal as it does, waking up without him shouldn't feel right. Shouldn't feel like enough.

But it does.

She gets out of bed, pulls on her clothes from yesterday and makes her way downstairs. It's still far too early for the sun to be up and yet, as she nears the banister, using her hand to turn herself onto the first floor landing, she spots Damon, sitting on the couch, looking like he'd been sitting there all night.

"Hey." She whispers, feeling a sharp pang of guilt in her chest as she looks at him, his exhaustion, the lines on his face that look freshly bent somehow. He hasn't been drinking but she thinks that's worse. He's just been sitting here, doing nothing. Listening, Elena thinks and her heart picks up a little in her chest, he had been sitting here, listening.

She had asked Stefan once, around the time they had first started dating, if vampires could block out the sounds they didn't want to hear, because they could hear so well and he had almost solemnly shaken his head back and forth before answering her.

"_We hear everything, whether we like it or not."_

The guilt is suddenly her heartbeat, pounding against her skin.

"Damon?" She says and her lips are dry and her throat is thick, lined with an acid she can't quite swallow down but can't really get out either.

It takes him a moment, his movements are guarded, lazy but he looks up at her and she reads everything she's looking for and everything she's not; her own moan is suddenly echoing in her hears, Stefan's grunts, wet against her neck.

She understands then, as his eyes falter a little, his hurt so present, she wishes he'd be angrier with her instead, why waking up without Stefan hadn't felt as empty, painful as it once used to. Why waking up without him wasn't a thought she craved and longed for to the point where she used to cry herself back to sleep on the mornings that were too hard to really face.

"Stefan's gone, if you're wondering…if you wanted to know why he wasn't upstairs with you."

Because she had become used to waking up to somebody else instead.

Elena blinks quickly; her eyes are filled and watches as Damon bends up to stand, hesitating there almost like he was waiting for her to stop him.

"Damon." She feels herself saying and it's quiet, small in her mouth and his hand goes to her cheek, just brushes across it in a way that makes her flinch but lean into, barely touching her as he was, just to feel his skin.

Hours ago, she was lying on her back and coming undone, feeling as though the entire world was back on it's axis and now here she was, trying to remember what it felt like to be connected to your own body.

"You shouldn't…we can't." She tries but it gets caught in her throat; her eyes are closed and she feels like she's swaying but his hand is still there, unmoving so she must be still, she must.

"Can't what?" He asks before he drops his hand and moves away from her. He's gone when she opens her eyes, the front door is still open and she thinks it must be one of the worst things as a vampire, to be able to run as far as you can, as fast as you want but still feel as though you were right where you started off.

* * *

><p>When she gets out of the shower, a few hours later, Stefan is sitting in the chair closest to the door. His eyes flick up, landing immediately on hers and then he's standing and pulling the towel from her hip, leaving her naked and breathless.<p>

"What…." She tries to say as his hands scoop around her hips. He's lifting her up and guiding her over to the bed as she's forgetting, all in one go, what she was going to say and caring about saying it.

"I wanna do something today." He says lowly, against the ring of her belly button and she gasps, can feel her heartbeat fly right up through her throat as he sucks at her full, using both hands to spread her wider.

She comes loud and unapologetically, it's so guttural and open, she'd be embarrassed if she had the chance to be but then he's reaching over to kiss her, all tongue and lips and teeth. He breaks away, touching one hand to her cheek, splaying his palm right out, using his thumb to mark the rises, curving across the falls of it.

He looks at her, his eyes dark, full of want and need, full of an energy that could tip right over the edge of despair or beauty at any moment, she knows but he looks at her, then at her cheek, suddenly sticking his tongue out to lick across it, all the way around to her mouth and it's something else entirely, the shadow across his face, something she can't read.

"Marked you." He says, almost as a moan and she finds herself smiling a little just as he leans back, going down her body again and stopping at the bumps of her skin; her hips bones, the curve of her thighs, using his hands to widen her knees just as her eyes roll to the back of her head. He licks and sucks her dry, until she lets out a gasp, his name coming out in strings, little breaks.

But he lifts off her suddenly, just as she's about to come, panting, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand; his hair is a mess and his face is full of life, his cheeks so pink they're practically shining. She watches him, feeling her skin, matted with sweat, sticking to the sheets.

"You taste different." Is all he says before climbing completely off the bed, walking away from her like he's just given up something he thought he needed but realized, too late, that he didn't.

She lies there for a long time after he's gone, long enough for the sky to grow dark again. Long enough to stop wondering if he was going to come back.

Breathe, Elena, she tells herself because she isn't, she can't. It's stuck in her lungs, in her throat, in her heart. _Breathe_.

_This is part of it, _she rationalizes._ This is what he needs to go through, this isn't him. You know that, it isn't._

_It isn't, _she thinks over and over again until she's closing her eyes and suddenly remembering this morning, Damon's eyes and her guilt and his hand and her cheek, suddenly she's remembering, suddenly it all makes sense, her heart just hurts.

_Marked you._

* * *

><p>Stefan breaks all the things he can't break inside him, outside instead. Tree branches, the ribs of animals, the necks and limbs and feet. He lets out the rage he doesn't know how to control but doesn't understand either, how it floods everything else he wants to feel but can't. He is flooded, still even though he hasn't had a single drop of human blood in days; it's a constant thirst pumping through his system, intoxicating him.<p>

He lets the blood of the deer he has just slaughtered, run out of his mouth as he lies across the bed of the forest, rain beginning to come down in sheets. He lets himself get covered, with mud, with water until he believes that he's so far embedded that you wouldn't realize he was there even if you stepped right over him. He could disappear completely, right into the earth and nobody would think to look.

But he's tried to disappear before, he's tried and failed, unable to mistake or ignore that desperation, his heart, loving her, stopping him from disappearing completely. He has tried and he has failed, loving her so much.

Elena, he thinks and moans out at the sky, letting the rain drip down his face.

He watched it, as though he were miles away even though he was just feet, as Damon placed his hand to her cheek, as she leaned in, as she closed her eyes, opened her lips like she had opened them for him before, kissed him before.

"_I took care of her, Stefan."_

Stefan pulls himself up and starts at a run, ripping into animals and finishing a feed that will just barely sustain him, thoughts of his brother, Elena and the thickest human blood, pooling at his mouth, all screaming in his head.

* * *

><p>She thinks she should get out of this room, if only to let herself breathe. It wasn't healthy, just lying there for hours, in the dark, stuck in this room.<p>

She can hear the rain, almost distantly and thinks about where Stefan is, what he was doing. If he was dry, warm. All the thoughts she used to have when he was missing, the thoughts that would contain her, give her something she could mark out in her head as a way of telling herself that he was still alive. If he could feel the rain, see it, he was alive. If she could hear it, he could hear it too.

Elena, for the second time that day, gets out of bed. She pulls on clothes, a rain jacket and gets outside, walking in a direction she's not sure of, becoming drenched in a matter of minutes. The forest surrounding the boarding house is thick and overgrown, dangerous in the darkness of the storm but still, she walks. Walks until she's slips and falls to the ground, staying there, panting, full of adrenaline, knowing she was stupid and reckless, knowing she was losing her mind. Knowing that it wasn't meant to happen this way, that he was meant to come home and everything was meant to be okay; that she wasn't supposed to lose her mind with him back, but lose it because he was so far away from her she couldn't remember what he even looked like anymore, she _knows_.

"Let's go home." She hears suddenly above the noise of the rain and he's picking her up effortlessly, holding her close to his body, kissing her forehead in a way that had his head ducked, private to hers.

_Stefan_, she wants to say but can't, her exhaustion taking her, _you found me._

Even though the hope for many months was that she would find him.

* * *

><p>Damon stays in the middle of nowhere for three days; he has enough blood to carry him and he's checked himself into an off the highway motel. He got as far away as he could without stopping, until he had to, his legs giving way. He has no idea where he really is but nobody knows him and nobody looks like Elena so he's okay for now, he's okay to just stop for a minute. He's okay to just forget; what his own name was, <em>what<em> he was, who was.

He stays in the middle of nowhere for three whole days, pretending. Breathing. Remembering what it feels like to survive without his brother, seeing if he could.

* * *

><p>In her dream, she's shaping his face. Finding each line, each freckle, each patch and shade of skin.<p>

She wakes up to find him beside her, asleep, on her bed in her house. She breathes in and it's clear, the way she can breathe back out, her heart calm. Neither of them were wet anymore and she's not wearing the clothes she had on before and she knows he must've changed her, made sure she was dry and warm, taking care of her, as he always would, before he would even think to take care of himself. It's barely past two in the afternoon, she reads her clock over his shoulder but she rolls into him and shuts her eyes, feeling as he moulded for her to fit there even in his sleep. Even as he too dreamed, shaping her.

* * *

><p>"Hi."<p>

"Hey." He whispers softly, still groggy, just waking up. She's been up for a few hours now, watching him. When she watched him like this, nothing has changed; the time without him, what he had done in the time separated from her. His face, so gentle as it was. It was the same, what it was before. He was free in a way; she realized he'd only really be allowed to get to from now on, in his sleep.

"I'm sorry." He whispers, his eyes now focused and open, staring at her wearily; Elena tucks her hands beneath her chin, wriggling as close to him as she can so their noses were just touching. He kisses the tip of hers before she can speak.

"I'm sorry too." She whispers back, _for sleeping with Damon, for wanting to, for not loving you enough, for loving you too much. For letting you go, for giving up_, she thinks as she looks at him, as they look at one another.

"Will it be okay?" She asks and it gets caught in her throat, tears coming to her eyes and his face creases, his arms coming over to cradle her.

"Someday." He says, kissing her nose again and leaning his head there, their foreheads pressed together, "Someday it'll be better and we'll forget. Someday it won't hurt as much. Someday I'll remember and be better. For you."

"Stefan," She starts and they're on her cheeks, he can't wipe them away fast enough, her tears, "You're already better enough for me, you are better, you are." But he's not, she knows, not even close.

"Someday." He repeats softly for them as she cries into the corner of his shoulder, "Someday we'll all be better."

She wonders if he can hear it, the distance in his voice and how he made someday sound like never.

* * *

><p>It's gone quiet; they're on opposite sides of the bed, just sitting there. The light is on and it's stopped raining but they're quiet. She cried for a while and he held her, only letting go when she wriggled away to clean herself up a little, coming out of the bathroom to find him just sitting there, on the edge of the bed. So she sat too, thinking they'll need to start talking more than they were ignoring each other in order for this to work.<p>

"Don't tell me." He says suddenly and she turns her head a little, looking at the floor.

"When he was dying, I kissed him."

He's off the bed in one motion, his hands in his hair, pacing the floor. She watches only his feet, turning her body towards him, her knees tucked up to her chest.

"Please." He begs, "Please stop."

"We didn't sleep together until after my birthday." She says quietly, wondering if her heart would keep from seeping even as she pressed her hand against it hard enough for it to stay in there.

"Jesus Christ." He says, his breath hitching and he's still pacing, and she gets up to stand, needing to be closer to him, thinking if they're going to get through this, they should get through it together.

"Stefan," She tries, getting a hold of his wrists, with his back towards her and he stops, breathing heavily, his shoulders shuddering to the point where they look like they'll cave right in.

"How could you….how could you do this to me?" He says and she starts to cry as he turns around, tears in his eyes, his chin quivering and he's barely holding on and she can't, she can't keep looking at him, she can't.

"I'm so sorry." She cries, "It wasn't meant to happen, I didn't mean for this happen, Stefan, I'm sorry."

But he's shaking his head and pushing her away, just as a sob breaks out of her and she's holding one arm around her waist, trying to wipe at her cheeks face the best she can with the other. Keep standing the best she can.

"How could you _do_ this to me." He repeats, gritting to his teeth but it's a pathetic attempt because he's a mess and losing control faster than he's trying to keep it.

"Please, _please_." She manages, clawing for him; she grabs his wrists again, squeezing them tight and he's still enough for her to lean against and they're suddenly chest to back, breathing in an unsteady rhythm, "Please." She repeats, pressing her forehead to his back, "I love you." She breathes and it seems to calm him almost immediately, "I love you, Stefan."

She kisses against him, again and again, feeling his breathing move through her and it's slowly evening out, both of theirs, even though she feels dizzy and weightless, unable to stop crying.

Slowly, he uses his hands to pry hers, gently from his wrists and he turns; his face is hardened and he's sniffing, trying to fix himself up the best he can.

"I have to find, Damon."

"No," She starts and her heart has practically kicked into overdrive, she tries to grab him as he moves around her but she's too slow and he's too fast, "Stefan, don't do this, please don't do this." She panics, rushing to the door and following him but he's disappeared. She runs back to her room, grabs her keys and gets downstairs and out the door.

She drops her keys three times, swearing loudly until she shoves the car key into the lock and gets her door open, gripping to the stirring wheel so hard, both hands have gone white.

It'll be the weirdest time that she wishes to be, more than anything, a vampire.

_He'll kill him_, she thinks as she drives, being as careful as she can, of corners and bumps, the road still wet, going as fast as she possibly can, _they'll kill each other._

She drives faster.

* * *

><p>AN: This fic will be winding down soon, almost in time for S3 (or you know, with my track record, probably right on time) but I know that the new season will spark fresh inspirations and ideas so look forward to stuff once it does begin.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: So I was half serious, half joking when I made that comment about having this finished by the premiere of S3. But apparently now I'm just serious. Sorry again guys for the delay and a huge thanks for the comments and the feedback. This fic wouldn't have been half of what it is if it weren't for the support. Thank _you_.

* * *

><p>He's not sure what makes him leave, maybe boredom. A brooding restless he couldn't ignore, couldn't shake off, no matter how hard he tried.<p>

Or maybe it was the sting, the ache, the realization that he really had known all along; that he couldn't live without his brother. Not anymore. Not ever again.

Damon packs up his things, stuffs them into a duffle bag and gets into his car, driving back to a home he knows will never mean as much without the person he had always, would always associate home with.

* * *

><p>He waits. He sits. He punches his fist into a wall.<p>

It doesn't take him very long to get out of town, to find a bar. To begin to drink. It doesn't take him very long to decide what he's going to do, what he's going to do to them both for what they did to him.

Not very long at all.

* * *

><p>She almost crashes her car. It swerves on the last bend, the one that led her down the driveway of the Salvatore mansion and she slams on her breaks, managing to swing her car around before it could hit a tree. She sits there for a few seconds when she's ripped her keys out and the car has completely stopped. It takes her a moment to realize that her phone was ringing and another to remember how to breathe; it all seems to stumble out of her, a hyperventilating pant, a gasping need for air. Her hands are trembling and she drops her phone by her feet.<p>

Elena lets out a yell, screaming so loud, she wonders if her lungs might burst. She screams until she can't scream anymore, until she's crying too hard to keep the sound coming out of her mouth. Until her face is a mess and she's slumped herself over, resting her head on the stirring wheel. _It's okay_, she reasons mentally, _it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, keep going. You need to keep going. _She holds herself to that, repeating reassurances in her head as she sits up, wipes her face and steadies her breathing before opening her door and getting out of the car.

She's holding her phone and her keys as she walks; it only takes a couple minutes and she's at the front door. It's not open but it's not locked either which surprises her and she braces herself as she pushes it open with the palm of her hand.

"Stefan?" She calls out, standing in the hallway; the house was completely still. Quiet. Unshifted, unmoved and she has a brief hope, the briefest that maybe he hadn't come back here, that maybe Damon was still away, that maybe instead of running to find his brother, Stefan had just decided to run.

Her phone begins to ring again.

"Hello?" She answers; not checking the caller I.D. and when she hears his voice, it's overwhelming, how relieving that is. How worrying.

"Maybe I should've stopped loving you."

The words are slurred, sloppy and low and she needs to sit with that thought for just a minute before she speaks; that he was drunk, sitting at a bar somewhere, nursing a bottle of beer, his broken heart.

"Where are you?" She asks and her voice wavers on every word, she just wants him _safe_.

"You're not real…" He continues and she can hear the sound of glass breaking, a door being pushed open, imagining the way he would've been walking outside, for silence, maybe sitting down on the curb, right on the road in the dark, the sun already down, "I made you up….you're not….you're not real because you're just there to hold and touch, for me because I wanted you and there you were, I made… you…up." He slurs and it's soft, muffled and so sad, it brings tears that ache and sting, right to her eyes.

"Please, Stefan, please tell me where you are, please." She begs frantically, gripping to the phone and the front door suddenly opens and closes sharply behind her. She doesn't look, knowing who it was, must've been.

"I'm going away now, far far away, tell my brother….tell Damon, that he won, that he wins….tell him, I don't need him anymore, tell him that Elena."

Damon is at her back, just barely and she can't turn to look at him because she'll fall to the floor if she does and she can't fall, she can't; he couldn't do _this_ to her, to them. He couldn't.

"You…you listen to me, listen to me Stefan, " She starts, straining to keep her voice even, sniffing up the tears, wiping them hard from her face, "You are not doing this, you don't get to do this, okay? I love you and I need you and I know you don't need other people, things to keep you going but it's not true, you can need someone, you can need them so much you're not sure who you are without them and you know you were better, happier because of them. I was happy with you, I am happy with you, please, please come home, I'm so sorry."

Damon has left though she didn't hear the reopening of the door and didn't see him come around her and she's thinking about that as she's sinking to her knees, she's thinking about that as the dial tone from the other line echoes in her ears, she's thinking_, I hurt you both, I should be the one who has to leave_ as she cradles the phone long enough for the dial tone to go flat and for the screen of her phone to fade out.

* * *

><p>She's still on the floor when she wakes up a few hours later and it's dark, the lights all off. This house always had lights on, a fire burning, she can't ever remember a time when it didn't and she closes her eyes shut again, her head against the carpet, knowing if she controlled the darkness, she wouldn't have to expect it to be light.<p>

I'm dying, she thinks.

"_I_ win," she breathes out to no one.

* * *

><p>Her first dream is of them together; she can see it as a memory, sure that it must've happened, that it was real even though it's not clear enough for her to really remember completely.<p>

"_I wonder how long it would take me to memorize you? From head to toe." He asks her as they lay along her bed, shoulder to feet. She snorts, kicking him gently; he has her foot in his hand and he stops rubbing it, instead tracing his fingertip over the bump of her ankle._

"_I'm serious, how long do you think?"_

_Elena sits up, her hair falling off her shoulders down to her back. She smiles at him for a moment before he looks over at her, his eyes warm and soft._

"_You've got a freckle on your left foot, big toe. Right in the middle of it. There's a scar on your right ankle that looks like an upside smile, you've got back dimples that dip right into your body, you have a cute little mole on the top of your stomach, one of the fingers on your left hand is bent from when you broke it playing football, even after you healed it. You stick your tongue out when you're concentrating hard on something, your eyes are a little blue but also a little green and you're self conscious of your teeth when you smile even though it makes you look beautiful."_

_She continues to smile gently at him even as his face shades and his eyes fill; he looks like he's wondering whether to grab her, hold her for as long as he possibly can or keep watching her, marvelling that she was ever his._

"_How long did it take you?" He asks softly, a small but sure lump in his throat._

_And Elena comes forward, lying across his stomach, burying her head in the curve of his shoulder, breathing him in._

"_Forever." She whispered, realizing what she was saying, what it meant by her saying it but no longer being afraid or sad at the prospect._

"_I think maybe, "He had said, carefully, his emotions overwhelming him, his love suddenly fisted in his heart, pushing against his chest, "That it'll take me longer than that."_

"_Good." Is all she says, like it's an agreement, a pact they've just made and it really, sort of is, "Good."_

* * *

><p>He can't do it.<p>

It's not until he's thrown, kicked, pushed at anything, everything there was to throw, kick or push at that he realizes it's because he doesn't want to, that he doesn't really want to die.

There's too much weight within him to sit, like it would burden him somehow even if he tried and he's stuck pacing his bedroom floor, hours on end, waiting, thinking, seeing his brothers face. Hers. Both of them together. Entwined together as it ever was within him, from the love of her to the love of his brother.

He won't kill himself, he won't, Damon tells himself, over and over again.

_Would I feel it though?_ He thinks, despite himself_; the moment, the second when it happened. Would it feel like the floor had given way, would it feel suffocating, like an impact, would I feel it?_

"He won't," he repeats out loud. _Like it were happening to you_, he knows.

* * *

><p>Stefan walks back home; there's an empty beer bottle in one hand and his ring in the other. He follows the signs, the marks that tell him which way would lead him down the right path because he has forgotten and he doesn't trust himself to know just from memory even though he knows he could trace the map back to them both against the palm of his hand without even needing to look.<p>

As he walks, he replays memories in his head. The first time they kissed, how he made her laugh, how they had loved, the way she had cried, thick warm tears into his shoulder, holding onto him for dear life, when her Aunt had died; every memory is a step, every memory is another breath, every memory and he's closer to seeing her again, every memory and the dark of the night is leaving him, every memory and the sun's coming up, every memory and his hand is touching the door knob of his house, his home, every memory and he's staring down at her body lying there curled on the floor. Every memory is her. Every single one.

"Damon." He speaks softly and waits. It takes his brother 10 minutes to come down the stairs, his eyes dark and exhausted, his body at a slant, his hands by his sides. He isn't ready for a fight even though he knew it was exactly what he was walking himself into.

"You're alive." Damon whispers, his lips are dry and his throat is drier; Stefan stands in the centre of the open doorway, the setting of the sun silhouettes him, making him look paler than he is; making him look unimaginable. Damon wonders if he's dreaming.

"How did she feel?" Stefan asks and he's not looking at Elena but at his brother, his fists tightening, "Warm? Soft? Unlike anything you thought she could feel like? Like if you didn't look at her for long enough, she might just disappear, right in front of you? Did she make you feel alive, Damon or make you feel so much that it made you wanna die?"

Stefan takes a step towards his brother who almost subconsciously, takes a step forward too.

"She wanted it to be you, every time. She loved me only in seconds, short blocks of time, Stefan. She has loved you always, don't you get that? She only wants you. Don't punish her, punish me, brother, punish me for loving her."

Stefan snarls, baring his teeth.

"I could take her away from you and you'd never see her again."

Damon blinks slowly, doesn't dare himself to look down at Elena even though she was just barely feet away, even though it's all he wants to do.

"So take her away."

Stefan snarls again, blood filling his pupils, rushing straight to his face; his eyes have gone completely black.

"Fight me." He spits and Damon finally manages to straighten his spin, just slightly, unable to stop himself and it feels like his entire body could split in half or seep to the floor at any moment.

"I'm not going to fight you." But it's pointless, a pathetic lie because they haven't stopped fighting each other, not since they were both too young to understand how big the world was, how separated, how far apart from one another they could possibly get.

"I'll make her forget." Stefan says, stepping forward again; one of Elena's outstretched hands was now at his feet though she was still asleep, her head to the floor. Damon knows that his brother does it for strength, gaining it from her, even though to him, he does it meaninglessly.

Damon finally looks at Elena and it's a split second before Stefan lunges, his fists at Damon's face, beating him, repeatedly. He's on human blood and it's far less even a fight than it ever has been and Damon takes it, each hit, each blow; a rib cracks, he can feel it and there is blood coming from the corner of his mouth but he takes it. Hit after hit until he can't feel the pain as sharp blows, until he can't see the room as clear, as present, as beneath and around him. His brother cannot beat him to death but Damon wonders, how close he could possibly get.

"_I did it for you, I did it all for you_." Damon hears and Stefan has hit against his ribs again, breaking another. It's venomous, it's heartbreaking, it stings and it's why Damon suddenly fights back.

He manages to get Stefan by the throat, shoving him against the back wall where some books haven fallen right off the shelf and Damon fists the front of his brother's shirt in his hands and slams him again against the concrete; it disorientates him and he's caught off guard when Damon suddenly grabs him again and throws him against the first beam of the staircase, right against his back. Stefan is immediately winded and falls to the floor, feet away from Elena and the impact of his body echoes around the room and Elena stirs at the sound.

Damon watches her as she takes in the surroundings, the broken furniture, and his bloodied face, Stefan writhing on the floor.

"Stop it." She tries but it comes out weak as she stands, pleading with Damon with her eyes just as Stefan gets to his feet again, grunting and spitting out blood.

"Stop it, Stefan." Elena repeats and Damon, locking eyes onto his brother's, can't tell whether he was ignoring her or if he just couldn't hear her. He's knocked back off his feet without warning, Stefan coming at him quicker than he was expecting and his head smacks against the bookshelf and the two cracked ribs make a searing pain crawl right up his spin, leaving him temporarily immobile as he falls to the floor.

Stefan spins, leaving him and snarls at Elena, the only living, human, breathing thing left for him to attack.

"Don't Stefan! Look at me, turn around and look at me." Damon yells out desperately, knowing how his brother was unable to separate hunger from judgement, from seeing her face to see the hundreds of others he had slaughtered and killed; he could snap her neck quicker than she could blink, seeing only her body, her flesh.

Elena looks at Stefan, stands there calmly watching him and Damon can't move or feel anything below his chest and it's all he do to not scream, at her, at his brother, at the situation.

"Damn it, move, Elena, you have to move, run, _damn_ _it_."

Stefan snarls and a bitter grin slides across his mouth; the sight is almost blinding but she's centred, ready for him. Waiting for him.

"Don't hide from me." She whispers and things happen in seconds; the way he moves for her, the way she moves for him, using whatever strength she has left to shove the piece of snapped off wood she picked up when she had risen from the floor against his chest. Blood comes out of his mouth and his knees give way and he gasps violently just as she pulls the wood back out, throwing it to the floor. He looks from his chest to her face, tears suddenly in his eyes and she catches him right as he hits the floor.

"I'm so sorry." He tries but he chokes, coughing on the blood still in his mouth and she helps him the best she can, shaking her head, hearing Damon's moan blurring into his brother's, into her own.

"I'm sorry too." She whispers and reaches for his hand, sliding the metal ring back onto his finger, "I'm sorry too."

* * *

><p>AN: Last chapter up before the new season begins, that I can most certainly promise.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: So this little monster is finally at an end. I know I've said it before but honestly, the feedback, the comments, the support towards this fic has been ridiculously wonderful and I'm grateful and so appreciative of it all, thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, thank you for enjoying.

* * *

><p>The first memory she remembers having as a child, the first memory she has of wanting to <em>be<em> something, was to be pregnant. She didn't want to be a nurse or a librarian. She didn't want to be a soccer player that would win championships, a mermaid or a fairy. All she wanted was to be pregnant. At 4 year olds she didn't fully understand what the word meant but she knew that your stomach got fuller, watching her mothers as she carried her brother; she knew that you were holding a life that somehow managed to find it's way out of you though she wasn't really sure how and she knew that it was possibly the greatest thing you could ever be.

That was all she wanted.

* * *

><p>Stefan stays willingly locked in one of the cellars for an entire week and becomes drained of blood in the process, his system shutting down as it leaves him, as the gruelling detox process begins all over again. But it's different this time, it's harder but it's clearer; what he has to do, what they all have to do. Elena stays down there with him while Damon restores the house and collets a fresh stock of animal blood, enough for his brother to live off for a couple months. They are rebuilding, they are restoring, reviving themselves, each of them the same, each of them individually, each of them with the other.<p>

"Elena?" Stefan whispers; he's lying against the dirt ground after moving from the cot because it had become too uncomfortable. Though everything is uncomfortable right now for him to touch, his skin ice and metal, the ground was the safest, the most familiar; the place he knew could hold all his weight, all of it.

"Stefan?" She says hopefully, her voice rising and she scrambles to sit up from where she was lying too on the floor of the corridor; they were only feet away. He hadn't spoken in a couple days and hearing his voice is relieving and so stabling; she thinks about calling for Damon, but only briefly, knowing this was their moment and only wanting it to be their moment.

"Will you stay with me?" He manages, his voice thin and Elena moves herself to the door, pushing her hands against it; the closest she can get to hugging or holding him.

"Yes," She breathes and brings herself up, using the door as support, looking through the bars of the small window at him as he shifted his head to look at her, "Yes, I'll stay with you."

She doesn't decide then, she had decided before, months ago but knows that it's what she's going to do now, hoping that he understood, even through his defeat and how crippled he was, what this meant for the both of them.

"_I'll stay with you forever."_

* * *

><p>"I want you to do it."<p>

Damon looks up from the piles of papers, cut out articles and maps that were scattered on his bed; all search tools, items he had collected when looking for Stefan, that were all no longer needed.

"I'm sorry?" He says, raising his eyebrows at her; his throat, for some reason, begins to ache; he has a sudden need to go down to be with his brother as he looks at her, not liking that he were suddenly alone.

Elena walks further into his bedroom, looking at the floor as if it held all the answers for them both and Damon finds that he's hearing his own breathing louder than he was hearing hers.

"What is it that you want me to do, Elena?" He asks her even though he knows.

Stefan's face ghosts across his eyes for the briefest of moments and then he's suddenly looking at her, dropping what's in his hands, her face so content.

"Now?" He asks disbelievingly and Elena nods, a small smile on her face.

"What better time than the present." She whispers softly.

Damon doesn't say anything but walks towards her, stopping when she's right there in front of him, more close than he's gotten to her in a long while, probably will ever get again; there's a sadness and an ache in that he doesn't quite understand but thinks that he might, years later.

He won't ever stop loving her, he knows but he'll stop desperately wanting for her to love him back.

"Wait for him." He says quietly as she flicks her eyes up at him, nodding, understanding.

"Damon…" She starts even though she has no idea where to, even though there a million things she wants to tell him, apologize for, promise to him but he's shaking his head and leaning his lips against her forehead, knowing that his brother could hear it all.

"I know." He says and walks around her in the direction of the cellar, "I know."

* * *

><p>He's not better but he's not worse; the animal blood diet has made him weak but fresh, his eyes gaining color in them. He's not better but he will be, they all know that, are sure of it.<p>

Stefan takes hold of Elena's hand as they look out across the valley from where they stood on their mountaintop, forest and land bleeding effortlessly into the skyline. She breathes in and then out, filling her lungs with the scent and fresh air.

"I'm scared."

"I'd be worried if you weren't."

"I thought it'd happen by accident, you know? Not like with Klaus but that I'd be forced into becoming a vampire, that I'd agree to do it against my will or something."

Stefan can't bring himself to look over at her but squeezes her hand.

"I don't want this life for you."

Elena finally turns her head, looking away from the sunset and the tips of the trees to his eyes, his face, holding that for a moment before she speaks.

"Worried you'll get sick of me?"

He turns his head quickly, giving her a look that was so familiar, so reminiscent of a time so much earlier between them, when things were easier, when things were about falling in love and not about staying alive in order to keep loving one another; it makes her smile, wide and full, tears suddenly in her eyes. _Hey stranger_, she wants to whisper, _I remember you._

"I could never." He says, almost under his breath looking back out at the skyline and she almost doesn't know what he's talking about but then realizes and curls her hand around his arm, leaning against him; he enfolds her, kissing the back of her neck, lingering there for a moment.

"Are you sure?" He asks and she nods, more sure of this than anything else in her life.

* * *

><p>They pick a day without even really thinking about it and it's worse than Elena had thought it would be; she cries when she comes back from seeing Jeremy and doesn't want to be near either of them for a few hours once Stefan had calmed her down. She locks herself in his bedroom and turns on his record player, an old song she can remember listening to with him starting to play softly.<p>

She feels helpless, suddenly bitterly angry and switches between things she could do to occupy herself; she can't eat, fearing she would be sick and she doesn't want to sleep; she wants to feel something, knowing it would be the last time. She wants to scream as loud as she can, run as fast as she can until her knees would weaken her but she can't and won't.

She showers, she leaves the room, walking outside where the sun was up; they had decided to use her vervain necklace rather than a ring for her to wear out during the day and Bonnie had already done all that she needed, the necklace under the protection and it comforts Elena in a weird way, this object around her neck now a constant reminder of the life she had left behind, the life she was about to start living.

"I was hoping it would rain." She says as she stands there, not really knowing how long Stefan had been leaning against the open doorway, watching her.

"Would it help?" He asks though he is not capable of such things and Elena shrugs, wriggling her toes at the gravel beneath her feet, getting them dirty and stained.

"No," She finally decides and turns to meet him; he looked tired today. Every day was a new struggle for him, a different fight to the day before and it would've worried her under any other circumstances but he was exhausted with her, from this. She'd tell him to go sleep; rest but knows that he won't, not until it was over, not until she were resting too.

"Damon's ready." He says quietly and Elena's heart seems to catch a little, her next breath getting caught in her lungs but she nods, walking past him and away from the sun.

"Well then I'm ready too."

Stefan doesn't follow her and she's not surprised when she turns, to find him walking outside where she had been standing, his back to her. He couldn't be apart of this and she doesn't feel like she should ask him to be.

"Stefan." She calls out and he turns slowly, looking sadder than he has ever looked before, for all the days she has known him; he gives her a smile though and mouths to her that he loves her and she, holding her necklace, mouths it back.

* * *

><p>It's not like before; she was terrified before, he was terrified before, of losing her, of not having here there with him. This time is slow and calm, is delicate and gentle. He cuts his wrist open, offering it to her like it was a palette, there for her to get creative with and she bends her head, opens her mouth and starts to paint.<p>

"Will it hurt?" She asks afterwards and Damon shakes his head; his blood is bitter in her mouth and she wipes the traces of it from her lips.

"I'll make sure that it doesn't." He promises.

He catches her even after he's twisted her head, broken her neck quickly and holds her on the floor, waiting for her to wake back up.

The first thing she says is Stefan's name, the second she tells him that her head was hurting and he pushes his wrist back against her mouth before she can get out the third, his name.

"Stefan's outside the door." Damon says after she's taken all the blood she can get from him, practically sucking his wrist dry. She stands up and grins, small and knowingly, helping him get to his feet with her hand.

"I know," She starts and walks forward, reaching for the handle that separated the three of them from each other, "I can hear his breathing."

* * *

><p>AN: Oh what a cruel way to end it but it leaves room for a sequel right? RIGHT? (SAYS AS SHE GRIPS TO HER HAIR). Hee, thanks again guys and happy S3 day!


End file.
